The bloodbath in Labour’s heartlands

The surge in support for Reform UK in last week’s local elections has largely been framed as a problem for the Conservatives, who lost 676 seats and all 15 of the councils they held. But the results are also catastrophic for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

Labour suffered double-digit declines in vote share across the country. Overall, it performed worse than when the same councils were last contested in 2021, at the height of Boris Johnson’s popularity. Labour’s result back then was so poor that Starmer even considered resigning as leader.

More bruising still are the results in Labour’s traditional heartlands. In County Durham in the north-east of England, where coal mining and trade unionism were once at the heart of communal life, Labour lost 38 councillors, leaving it with just four on the 98-person council. Reform, which took control of Durham, gained a remarkable 65 councillors – including former GB News presenter Darren Grimes, who was elected to represent the Annfield Plain and Tanfield ward. ‘You could put a donkey with a red rosette on it at one point and it would win, but no one I know is voting Labour now’, Grimes said ahead of the election. Incredibly, in this Brexit-voting, working-class county, the Liberal Democrats now have 10 more councillors than Labour.

Moving to South Yorkshire, things were not much better for Labour in Doncaster. Also a former mining area, it is currently home to huge warehousing and logistical facilities for retailers such as Next and supermarkets like Lidl. While Labour mayor Ros Jones was re-elected in Doncaster (beating Reform UK’s Alexander Jones by just 698 votes after previously holding a majority of over 10,000), Reform wrested control of the council from Labour. Labour lost 28 councillors, while Reform UK gained 37, meaning that more than two in three councillors in Doncaster now belong to Nigel Farage’s party. It is the first time that any party other than Labour has controlled Doncaster Council.

One local-election result that has gone largely overlooked due to most of the votes happening in England was a council by-election in Bridgend, south Wales. Newly elected Reform councillor Owain Clatworthy narrowly beat Labour’s Gary Chappell by 30 votes. While no party other than Labour has ever controlled Bridgend County Borough Council, Reform’s by-election win here could be a sign of things to come. Elections for the Welsh Senedd are scheduled for next year and Farage has said that Reform is competing to be the biggest party in the Welsh parliament. Reform is likely to provide a strong challenge to Labour, especially in south Wales, where there are concerns over the poor delivery of public services (particularly the NHS) and asylum policy (as demonstrated by protests outside an asylum hotel last year in Llanelli).

Labour’s response to these defeats so far has been downright bizarre. Starmer said last week that Labour needs to press ahead, ‘further and faster’, with its agenda – ignoring the reality that many of the policy changes introduced by his government are hugely unpopular. Polls suggest that cuts to winter fuel payments and the failure to tackle illegal migration have angered voters most, while most voters struggle to name policies they approve of. Offering more of the same is unlikely to stem the tide of voters defecting from Labour.

All of this has left a major opening for Reform, which as well as cannibalising the Tories’ support, is now making serious inroads into Labour’s traditional working-class heartlands. These voters, tired of being neglected by the party that was set up to represent them, are flocking in their droves to an alternative. Starmer has been warned.

Rakib Ehsan is the author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities, which is available to order on Amazon.